The Long Roll
akin--and perhaps, being young to war, that solemn battlefield loomed to
us so large that it obstructed the view of the routed invasion now
across the Potomac, out of Virginia. We held then and we hold still,
that our generals that day were sagacious and brave, and we think
history may take their word for it that any effective pursuit, looking
to the crossing of the Potomac, was a military impossibility. It is true
that Stonewall Jackson, as history reminds us, was heard to exclaim
while the surgeon was dressing his hand, 'Give me ten thousand fresh
troops, and I will be in Washington to-morrow!' But there were not the
ten thousand troops to give."
CHAPTER IX
WINCHESTER
The December afternoon was drawing to a quiet close. The season had
proved extraordinarily mild--it seemed Indian summer still rather than
only a fortnight from Christmas. Farming folk prophesied a cold January,
while the neighbourhood negroes held that the unusual warmth proceeded
from the comet which blazed this year in the skies. An old woman whom
the children called a witch sat in the sun on her doorstep, and shook
her head at every passer-by. "A green Christmas makes a fat
graveyard.--Down, pussy, down, down!--A green Christmas makes a fat
graveyard. Did ye hear the firing yesterday?"
An amethyst haze filled the valley town of Winchester. Ordinarily, in
weather such as this, the wide streets had a dream quality and the
gardens where the chrysanthemums yet lingered and the brick sidewalks
all strewn with russet leaves, and the faint smell of wood smoke, and
the old gilt of the sunshine, all carried back as to some vanished song
or story, sweet while it lasted. But if this was true once of
Winchester, and might be true again, it was hardly true of to-day, of
Winchester in December 1861; of Winchester with Major-General T. J.
Jackson, commanding the Department of the Valley, quartered in the town,
and the Stonewall Brigade, commanded by Garnett, encamped upon its edge,
and the Valley Troopers commanded by Ashby, flashing by on their way to
reconnoitre the Federal General Banks; of Winchester, with bands playing
"Dixie," with great white-topped wagons going endlessly through the
streets, with soldiers passing and repassing, or drilling, drilling,
drilling in the fields without, or thronging the Taylor House, or coming
to supper in the hospitable brick mansions where the pretty girls could
never, never, never look aught but kindly on any man who wore the
grey--of Winchester, in short, in war time.
The sun slipped low in the heavens. Out of the purple haze to the south,
a wagon from Staunton way, drawn by oxen and piled high with forage,
came up a side street. The ancient negro who drove was singing,--
"I saw de beam in my sistah's eye,
Cyarn see de beam in mine!
Yo'd better lef' yo' sistah's doah,
An' keep yo' own doah fine!--
An' I had er mighty battle lak Jacob an' de angel--"
The wagon passed on. A picket squad swung up the middle of the street,
turned, and went marching toward the sunset. The corner house was a
warehouse fitted for a hospital. Faces showed at the windows; when, for
a moment, a sash was lifted, a racking cough made itself heard. Just
now no wounded lodged in the warehouse, but all the diseases were there
with which raw troops are scourged. There were measles and mumps, there
were fevers, typhoid and malarial, there were intestinal troubles, there
were pleurisy and pneumonia. Some of the illnesses were slight, and some
of the men would be discharged by Death. The glow of the sun made the
window glass red. It was well, for the place needed every touch of
cheer.
The door opened, and two ladies came out, the younger with an empty
basket. The oppression of the place they were leaving stayed with them
for some distance down the wider street, but at last, in the rosy light,
with a bugle sounding from the camp without the town, the spirits of the
younger, at least, revived. She drew a long breath. "Well! As long as
Will is in a more comfortable place, and is getting better, and Richard
is well and strong, and they all say he is a born soldier and his men
adore him, and there isn't a battle, and if there were, we'd win, and
this weather lasts, and a colonel and a captain and two privates are
coming to supper, and one of them draws and the other has a voice like
an angel, and my silk dress is almost as good as new, I can't be
terribly unhappy, mother!"
Margaret Cleave laughed. "I don't want you to be! I am not 'terribly'
unhappy myself--despite those poor, poor boys in the warehouse! I am
thankful about Will and I am thankful about Richard, and war is war, and
we must all stand it. We must stand it with just as high and exquisite a
courage as we can muster. If we can add a gaiety that isn't thoughtless,
so much the better! We've got to do it for Virginia and for the
South--yes, and for every soul who is dear to us, and for ourselves!
I'll lace your silk dress, and I'll play Mr. Fairfax's accompaniments
with much pleasure--and to-morrow we'll come back to the warehouse with
a full basket! I wish the coffee was not getting so low."
A soldier, a staff officer equipped for the road, came rapidly up the
brick sidewalk, overtook the two, and spoke their names, holding out his
hand. "I was sure 'twas you! Nowadays one meets one's world in no matter
how unlikely a place! Not that Winchester is an unlikely place--dear and
hospitable little town! Nor, perhaps, should I be surprised. I knew that
Captain Cleave was in the Stonewall Brigade." He took the basket from
Miriam and walked beside them.
"My youngest son has been ill," said Margaret. "He is in the 2d. Kind
friends took him home and cared for him, but Miriam and I were unhappy
at Three Oaks. So we closed the house and came."
"Will always was a baby," volunteered Miriam. "When the fever made him
delirious and they thought he was going to die, he kept calling for
mother, and sometimes he called for me. Now he's better, and the sister
of a man in his mess is reading 'Kenilworth' aloud to him, and he's
spoiled to death! Richard always did spoil him--"
Her mother smiled. "I don't think he's really spoiled; not, that is, by
Richard.--When did you come to town, Major Stafford?"
"Last night," answered Stafford. "From General Loring, near Monterey. I
am the advance of the Army of the Northwest. We are ordered to join
General Jackson, and ten days or so should see the troops in Winchester.
What is going to happen then? Dear madam, I do not know!"
Miriam chose to remain petulant. "General Jackson is the most dreadful
martinet! He drills and drills and drills the poor men until they're too
tired to stand. He makes people get up at dawn in December, and he won't
let officers leave camp without a pass, and he has prayer meetings all
the time! Ever so many people think he's crazy!"
"Miriam!"
"But they do, mother! Of course, not Richard. Richard knows how to be a
soldier. And Will--Will would be loyal to a piece of cement out of the
Virginia Military Institute! And of course the Stonewall Brigade doesn't
say it, nor the Rockbridge Artillery, nor any of Ashby's men--they're
soldiers, too! But I've heard the _militia_ say it--"
Maury Stafford laughed. "Then I won't! I'll only confide to you that the
Army of the Northwest thinks that General Jackson is--is--well, is
General Jackson!--To burn our stores of subsistence, to leave unguarded
the passes along a hundred miles of mountain, to abandon quarters just
established, to get our sick somehow to the rear, and to come up here
upon some wild winter campaign or other--all on the representation of
the rather singular Commander of the Army of the Valley!" He took off
his gold-braided cap, and lifted his handsome head to the breeze from
the west. "But what can you do with professors of military institutes
and generals with one battle to their credit? Nothing--when they have
managed to convert to their way of thinking both the commanding general
and the government at Richmond!--You look grave, Mrs. Cleave! I should
not have said that, I know. Pray forget it--and don't believe that I am
given to such indiscretions!" He laughed. "There were representations
which I was to make to General Jackson. Well, I made them! In point of
fact, I made them but an hour ago. Hence this unbecoming temper. They
were received quite in the manner of a stone wall--without comment and
without removal from the ground occupied! Well! Why not expect the thing
to show its nature?--Is this pleasant old house your goal?"
They had come to a white, old mansion, with steps running up to a narrow
yard and a small porch. "Yes, we are staying here. Will you not come
in?"
"Thank you, no. I ride as far as Woodstock to-night. I have not seen
Captain Cleave. Indeed, I have not seen him since last spring."
"He is acting just now as aide to General Jackson. You have been all
this while with General Magruder on the Peninsula?"
"Yes, until lately. We missed Manassas." He stood beside the garden
wall, his gauntleted hand on the gatepost. A creeper bearing yet a few
leaves hung from a tree above, and one of the crimson points touched his
grey cap. "I am now on General Loring's staff. Where he goes at present
I go. And where General Jackson goes, apparently we all go! Heigho! How
do you like war, Miss Miriam?"
Miriam regarded him with her air of a brown and gold gilliflower. She
thought him very handsome, and oh, she liked the gold-braided cap and
the fine white gauntlet! "There is something to be said on both sides,"
she stated sedately. "I should like it very much did not you all run
into danger."
Stafford looked at her, amused. "But some of us run out again--Ah!"
Cleave came from the house and down the path to the gate, moving in a
red sunset glow, beneath trees on which yet hung a few russet leaves. He
greeted his mother and sister, then turned with courtesy to Stafford.
"Sandy Pendleton told me you were in town. From General Loring, are you
not? You low-countrymen are gathering all our mountain laurels! Gauley
River and Greenbriar and to-day, news of the Allegheny engagement--"
"You seem to be bent," said Stafford, "on drawing us from the Monterey
line before we can gather any more! We will be here next week."
"You do not like the idea?"
The other shrugged. "I? Why should I care? It is war to go where you are
sent. But this weather is much too good to last, and I fail to see what
can be done to the northward when winter is once let loose! And we leave
the passes open. There is nothing to prevent Rosecrans from pushing a
force through to Staunton!"
"That is the best thing that could happen. Draw them into the middle
valley and they are ours."
Stafford made a gesture. "_Ducdame, ducdame, ducdame!_ Mrs. Cleave,
there is no help for it! We are bewitched--and all by a stone wall in an
old cadet cap!"
Cleave laughed. "No, no! but it is, I think, apparent--You will not go
in? I will walk with you, then, as far as the hotel."
Margaret Cleave held out her hand. "Good-bye, Major Stafford. We think
day and night of all you soldiers. God bless you all, wherever you may
be!"
In the sunset light the two men turned their faces toward the Taylor
House. "It is a good thing to have a mother," said Stafford. "Mine died
when I was a little boy.--Well, what do you think of affairs in
general?"
"I think that last summer we won a Pyrrhic victory."
"I share your opinion. It was disastrous. How confident we are with our
'One to Four,' our 'Quality, not Quantity,' our contempt for 'Brute
Mass'! To listen to the newspapers one would suppose that the fighting
animal was never bred north of the Potomac--Maryland, alone, an